How Growth In Mobile Technology & HTML 5 Will Impact Video

At the SES San Jose Conference, I spoke at the session titled “the next wave for online video.” In that session, both Gregory Markel (of infusecreative) and I spoke about the importance of mobile when it comes to the future of video. Later that day, I had a chance to speak with Michael Boland who is the Program Director of Mobile Local Media for The Kelsey Group. Naturally he has something to say about mobile, and specifically mobile video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3BeKncTULY

Mobile browsing—and video-watching—is where things are headed, and at breakneck speed. As more and more people hop on the smart phone bandwagon, it’s only logical that the mobile browsing experience will need to improve. As Michael states, this is why you’re seeing such rapid advancement from the mobile service providers in creating 4G wireless broadband networks. As use of mobile devices grows, so will the demand for rich content via those devices, particularly video.

He quotes an interesting statistic from Cisco that helps to point to the rapid pace of innovation in the mobile space. Back in February, Cisco released its Visual Networking Index, which forecasts that mobile traffic will reach over an exabyte per month by 2012-2013. To help put that in perspective, the online web hit the exabyte milestone in 2004, more than 30 years after the first email was sent. However, the mobile web will reach this milestone only 18 years after the first text message was sent.

Michael also touches on HTML5, and how there are mobile browsers supporting it already, like the latest Safari browser on the iPhone. Because HTML 5 allows you to pull in location directly into the browser, it’s opening up capabilities that only native apps had previously. He’s essentially hinting that “apps” on mobile devices might be made obsolete by the use of HTML 5; you won’t need to download apps, because they’ll be browser based.

Finally, he mentions a couple upcoming conferences from The Kelsey Group that you might take note of: